There seems to be a reluctance on the part of regonal media to mention the shortage here in East Anglia. Whether the same applies in Hampshire I wouldn't like to say, but it almost feels that the BBC are so scared of the climate sceptics that they think that any mention of rainfall shortage is going to cause a controversy.

...except if you're in an ongoing drought as we are here. With the Norfolk and Suffolk countryside already brown, another four weeks of dry weather will probably see shortages...in bloody autumn! Certainly, the anomaly outputs Malcolm linked earlier today would support this.

Met Office have developed or use plenty of models we don't get to see, IIRC, so it may be the case that they are divided as to whether we'kk be under a ridge of high pressure by next weekend as the main two models show.

What are his thoughts regarding rainfall? If we have a dry autumn and winter, there will be shortages here next summer, and a dry spring will almost certainly see the Cam through Cambridge run dry and standpipes in the streets.

By contrast, it's been typical of the last year or so (let alone the summer) that your heavy rain has faded to the occasional bit of drizzle here. We've had barely over 50% of our average rainfall for August I think, on top of a dry July. Combined, these two months have eradicated the surplus rainfall from June.

Fascinating stuff, Malcolm, and, though I am aware we're not supposed to discuss forecasts here, this makes a contrast to MeteoGroup's prognostications for the weekend and early next week for the East, which is almost entirely dry.

Just shows the extreme nature of the positioning of fronts - Sheffield isn't far (in an NH sense) from here, yet we're only around 50% of average rainfall for August, with July being between 60 and 80% depending on exact location.

After a dry July in East Anglia and the south-east, the forecast for the rest of August and most of September is much the same. Local news earlier today reported that some rivers in the region are being supplied by water from deep boreholes as the aquifers that supply them have dried up. While the north and north-west has had excessive rain this summer, this region has seen below-average rainfall since June.